|
GREEK
 The
religion of the ancient Greeks was focused on the worship of
the Sun, the Moon, and a race of divine beings known as the
Olympians. Whilst the cults of the Sun and the Moon are unexceptional,
the cults of the Olympian gods are wrapped in a mythology
that sheds considerable light on the origins and significance
of
the Greek religion.
Who,
or what, were the Olympian gods? According to scholars, the Greek
gods personified the mundane
forces of nature.
They were
nature-gods, fertility-gods, thunder-gods, lightning-gods,
hailstone-gods, and rain-gods, whose dwelling place, Mount Olympus,
lay in the
clouds. As 'Encyclopaedia Britannica' (1999 edition) explains:
According
to the Greek poet Homer, Heaven was located on the summit
of Olympus, the highest mountain in Greece and the logical
home for a weather god.
But
what did the ancient Greeks say?
For
an answer to the mystery of the Olympian gods, we must look first
to the works of the
great poets Homer and
Hesiod who laid the literary foundations
of Greek religion during the 8th century BC. As Herodotus, the ‘father
of history’, wrote: ‘It was Homer and Hesiod who
composed a divine genealogy for the Greeks, and who gave the
gods their
titles, allocated to them their powers
and fields of expertise, and made clear their forms.’
In
the works of Homer (Iliad; Odyssey) and Hesiod (Theogony;
Works and Days), the gods are given human-like appearances and
personalities.
However,
in
the Iliad, Homer makes it clear that the gods are a race apart
from humans. He
has Apollo express the following warning to one of the heroes
of the Trojan War:
“Never
think yourself the equal of the gods – since there can
be no likeness ever between the make of immortal gods and of
men who walk on the
ground.”
This
difference between gods and humans becomes strikingly obvious
when the hero Diomedes attacks
the Goddess Aphrodite:
And
the spear pierced straight through the skin [of Aphrodite]...
and immortal’s
blood dripped from her – ichor,
which runs in the blessed gods’ veins.
They do not eat food, they do not drink gleaming
wine, and so they are without (normal) blood
and are called immortals.
In
addition to their immortality and strange physiology,
the gods also possessed supernatural size
and strength; the ability
to travel
vast distances
in a
blink of the eye; and the ability to metamorphose
into numerous different forms.
Their true nature, it would seem, was that
of invisible, spiritual entities (or daimones,
to use the Greek term).
How
to rationalise the human, and yet non-human, nature of
the Olympian gods? The answer is
personification. Following
the pattern
established
in Mesopotamia
more than two thousand years earlier,
Homer’s
and Hesiod’s gods personified
the cosmic powers that had acted at
the beginning of the world.
This
brings us to the Greek creation myth.
In
Hesiod’s Theogony,
the origin of all the gods is traced to an original primal
marriage of Ouranos (Heaven) and Gaia (Earth):
Great
Ouranos came, bringing on Night,
and desirous of love, he spread
himself over
Gaia, stretched
out in every direction.
From
this celestial union, Gaia (Earth) bore the first generation
of gods and
giants, which included
Kronos,
the three Cyclopes,
and the three Hundred-handers.
She groaned, we are told,
when these gods and giants were
pressed
tight inside
her
womb.
In
this myth, Ouranos personifies the Mountain of Heaven, which
physically explodes and
falls to the Earth, thus
sowing the
seeds of creation.
His name Ouranos meant
literally ‘Mountain
of Heaven’ (from
the Greek word ouros for ‘mountain’),
and he was thus a cognate
for the older Mesopotamian
gods Anu, Enlil, Enki,
and Zu, who likewise
personified the Mountain
of Heaven.
Following
her insemination
by Ouranos, Gaia also
gave birth to the mountains,
the sea,
and the heavenly
abode
of Mount
Olympus,
which
Hesiod described
as ‘a
secure seat for ever
for the blessed gods’.
At
the same time, according
to Hesiod, Gaia gave
birth to an image
of Ouranos
himself:
Earth
bore, first of all, one equal
to herself,
starry
Ouranos, so
that he should
cover her
all about,
to be a secure seat
for ever
for the blessed
gods.
The
gods were thus given two ‘secure seats’: one
on Mount Olympus and one on Ouranos (‘the Mountain
of Heaven’).
The idea, it would seem, is that the gods, having been
born from the Earth, ascended into the sky
to take
up residence (a) on Mount Olympus; and (b) in the stars (Ouranos
being synonymous with the starry heavens).
What
was the nature
of Mount
Olympus? Not a
terrestrial
mountain
with its peak in
the Earth’s
troposphere,
as scholars
assume.
Rather,
an invisible
image
of the
original
Mountain
of Heaven
(Ouranos),
which
was
created
in the
so-called
pure
air,
or upper
air,
which
the Greeks
called
aither.
The
Olympian gods,
as
invisible and
aethereal
entities,
thus
came
to
reside upon
an
equally
invisible
and
aethereal ‘mountain’ which
had
been created
by
magic in the
heavenly
void.
The
idea
was
that
Ouranos,
the
father
of
the
gods,
had
disintegrated
and
descended
physically
from
Heaven
to
Earth,
whereupon
Gaia
bore
a
metaphysical image
of
Ouranos
in
the
sky,
henceforth
to
be
called
Mount
Olympus,
and
a
metaphysical
image
of
his ‘children’,
henceforth
to
be
called
the
gods.
All
of this
was in
the best
traditions of
ancient Near
Eastern mythology,
as found
particularly in
Mesopotamia from
the 3rd
millennium BC.
Other
Gods too
personified the ‘Mountain of Heaven’ which had exploded
and fallen upon the Earth. The best example here is Zeus,
who
had become ‘king
of the gods’ after the successive dethronements of
Ouranos and Kronos. In Theogony, Hesiod describes
how Zeus brought his battle against the Titans
to a climactic end by plunging down from the heavenly
Mount
Olympus:
...
with continuous
lightning flashes
Zeus went,
and the
bolts flew
thick and
fast amid
thunder and
lightning from
his stalwart
hand, trailing
holy flames.
All around,
the life-bearing
Earth rumbled
as it
burned... The
whole land
was seething,
and the
streams of
Oceanus, and
the undraining
sea. The
hot blast
enveloped the
chthonic Titans;
the indescribable
flames reached
the divine
heavens... it
was just
as if
Earth and
the broad
Heaven above
were coming
together...
In
the aftermath
of this
cataclysmic battle,
two things
occurred which
attest to
the fundamental
cataclysmic nature
of Greek
religion and
mythology.
Firstly,
Zeus planted
in the
earth, at
Delphi, the
stone that
had been
swallowed and
ejected by
Kronos. This
stone was
a baetylus,
or meteorite.
Secondly,
Zeus ordered
the Titan
god Atlas
to support
the Heaven
(or heavens)
on his
shoulders – lest the sky collapse upon the Earth once
again.
As
for Zeus,
he was
reborn as
a spirit
after his
physical fall
from Heaven
to Earth.
According to
a famous
myth, Gaia
had protected
Zeus by
concealing him
deep within
the Earth ‘in a cave hard of access’, supposedly
beneath the island of Crete. Zeus had then grown rapidly,
with his limbs ‘shining’,
until he had eventually sprung forth from the mountain
to the accompaniment of a tremendous noise. This myth
went hand in hand with a ritual: every year the
Cretans would celebrate the mystery of Zeus by building
a great fire to commemorate his birth from the subterranean
cave.
The
meaning of
this mystery
is that
Zeus had
come into
being as
an independent
spirit which
had separated
from his
body. Whilst
his body
had remained
behind in
the Earth
(hence the
myths of
him swallowing
various gods
and goddesses),
his spirit
had soared
up into
the sky,
to become
the Universe,
in the
same manner
as Ouranos
had been
reborn as
Olympus and
Ouranos (the
heavens).
The
idea was
that the
Great God
(in this
case Zeus)
personified
the
death of
the old
Universe
and
the rebirth
of the
new Universe.
Other
Greek
Gods,
too, personified
the death
and rebirth
of the
Universe,
although
their mythologies
were in
part occulted
by the
requirement
to
make them ‘sons’ and ‘daughters’ of
Zeus. Thus the myth of the God’s death,
or fall from the sky, is preserved in fragments
of the mythologies of Hera, Athene, Asteria/Leto,
Poseidon, Apollo,
Hermes, Dionysus, and Hephaestus. But each
God and Goddess is reborn from the Earth
as a spirit (daimon) to the accompaniment of either
bright light, or fire,
or loud noise, or a quaking of the Earth,
and thereupon ascends to the heavenly Mount
Olympus.
This
separation
of
the God’s spirit from his body marks
the ‘separation
of the heavens from the Earth’,
which, significantly, coincides with
a cataclysm.
In
the Argonautika of Apollonios
Rhodios,
Orpheus
reports
the
following
account
of the
mingling
of
Heaven
and
Earth,
followed
by their
forceful
separation:
He
sang
how,
in
the
beginning,
Earth,
Heaven
and
sea
were
confounded
in
common
mass
together
and
then,
as
the
result
of
grievous
strife,
were
separated
one
from
the
other...
Similarly,
the
dramatist
Euripides
described
a
forceful
separation
of
Heaven
from
Earth.
He
had
Melanippe-the-wise
state:
“It is not my word, but my mother’s word,
How Heaven and Earth were once one form; but stirred
And strove, and dwelt asunder far away;
And then, re-wedding, bore unto the day
And light of life all things that are: the trees,
Flowers, birds and beasts, and those that breathe the seas,
And mortal man, each in his kind and law.”
The
Earth thus gave birth to the heavens amidst a cataclysm – an
idea attested also in the myth of Ouranos and Gaia, and the
birth
myth of Zeus (see earlier),
as well as in other myths such as the birth of Athene from
the
Zeus after the latter’s ‘head’ (the Earth)
had been split open by the axe of Hephaestus.
A
cataclysm
also
marked
the
creation
of
mankind,
according
to
the
popular
myth
of Deucalion
and
Pyrrha.
In days
of yore,
it
was
said,
Zeus
had
unleashed
a
great
flood
upon
the
face
of the
Earth,
and
the
progenitors
of
the
human
race,
Deucalion
and
Pyrrha,
had
built
a
great
boat,
into
which
they
embarked.
This
boat
was
then
swept
away
by the
floodwaters
which
eventually
covered
the
surface
of
the
whole
world.
But,
after
nine
days,
the
waters
subsided
and
the
boat
became
grounded
atop
a
sacred
mountain.
Thereupon,
the
hero
and
the
heroine
disembarked,
offered
the
obligatory
sacrifice
to
the
gods,
and
prayed
for
the
creation
of
mankind.
At
this
point,
something
very
odd
happened.
The
myth
runs
that
Themis – a
Mother
Earth-goddess – appeared
to
Deucalion
and
Pyrrha
and
advised
them: “Shroud
your
heads
and
throw
the
bones
of
your
mother
behind
you!”.
Immediately,
the
heroic
couple
did
as
they
were
told.
They
picked
up
stones
from
the
river
bank
and,
while
covering
their
heads,
threw
these
stones
over
their
shoulders.
Incredibly,
the
stones
thrown
by
Deucalion
became
men,
whilst
the
stones
thrown
by
Pyrrha
became
women;
and
thus
was
the
human
race
created.
Other
Greek
myths
allude
to
a
sequence
of
world
ages,
each
of
which
was
brought
to an
end
by
a
cataclysm,
of
which
the
Flood
of Deucalion
was
the
most
recent.
Intriguingly,
the
Earth
was
said
to
be inhabited
in the
earlier
world
ages
not
by
the
present
race
of
humans
but
by
precursor
species,
whom
Hesiod
described
as
the
golden
race,
the
silver
race,
and
the
bronze
race.
In
his
book
Timaeus,
the Athenian
philosopher
Plato
had
an
Egyptian
priest
state
that
the
Earth
had
been
devastated
on
many
occasions
in
the
past
by
floods
of
fire
and
water
that
had
rained
down
from
the
heavens.
These
cataclysms
were
caused,
said
the
priest,
by
deviations
in
the
courses
of
the
celestial
bodies.
Significantly,
Plato
suggested
that
such
a
cataclysmic
event
lay
behind
the
myth
of
Phaethon,
the
son
of
Helios,
who
had
crashed
his
father’s
chariot
into
the
Earth,
setting
the
whole
world
on
fire.
In
other
words,
the
God
Phaethon
personified
the ‘fall
of
the
sky’.
Conclusions
The
ancient
Greek
myths
were
largely
borrowed
and
adapted
from
the
older
myths
of
Mesopotamia.
Greek
religion
was
a ‘cult
of creation’.
The
Great
God
and
Great
Goddess
personified
the
cataclysm
of
creation
and
the
formative
Universe.
Reading
List
A.F.
Alford, ‘The Atlantis Secret’, Eridu Books, 2001.
C.
Boer
trans., ‘The Homeric Hymns’, Spring Publications,
1970.
W.
Burkert, ‘Greek Religion’, Harvard University
Press, 1985.
W.
Burkert, ‘The Orientalising Revolution’,
Harvard University Press, 1995 edition.
J.M.
Cooper
ed., ‘Plato: Complete Works’, Hackett
Publishing Company Inc., 1997.
R.
Graves, ‘The Greek Myths’, combined
edition, Penguin Books, 1992.
P.
Green
trans., ‘Argonautika’ by Ap.
Rhodios, University of California Press,
1997.
W.K.C.
Guthrie, ‘Orpheus and Greek Religion’,
Princeton University Press, 1993.
M.
Hammond
trans, ‘Homer The Iliad’,
Penguin Books, 1987.
C.
Penglase, ‘Greek Myths and
Mesopotamia’, Routledge,
1994.
E.V.
Rieu
trans., ‘Homer The Odyssey’,
Penguin Books, 1991 edition.
R.
Stoneman
ed., ‘Pindar The Odes
and Selected Fragments’,
Everyman, 1997.
M.L.
West, ‘The East Face
of Helicon’, Clarendon
Press, 1999.
M.L.
West, ‘Hesiod,
Theogony and Works
and Days’, Oxford
University Press,Oxford
World’s Classics
paperback edition, 1999.
|
